It sounds great. It's connected up to a pair of Tannoy DMT 12 monitors and getting its signal from a mixer that's connected to a phono preamp and an RME interface to a computer. The better the audio production that goes in, the better the sound that comes out. The Tannoys can be bi-wired and at the moment I've got the low frequency linked to the 'voltage' output of the sunfire and the high frequency to the 'current'. I did try comparing some wiring options, but I didn't end up reaching any clear conclusions - by the time I've turned down the volume on the mixer, switched off the amp, rewired the amp and switched it back on, re-cued the music, returned the mixer fader to its original position and returned to my chair, I've forgotten what it sounded like in the first place! Or the difference is too subtle to judge - I think I'd need a switch with a remote to be able to make a good comparison - or an assistant! Because I got the Sunfire and the Tannoys in the same week, there's been a sudden and dramatic jump in quality (before I was listening through a pretty mediocre pair of active monitors). It's changing the way I've been choosing music to play. Many of my LPs for example are quite old, in mono and not always of the highest quality (both pressing and recording) and I've been passing a few of these over for other options, even when the actual music on the more marginal disks is excellent. Maybe this will change once I get over the initial excitement of the new system!

I read an interview recently with the musician Ed Motta who has a collection of 30k LPs in his home. He said he has two turntables, on hi-end German make and a Technics. He said he uses the Technics on these lower quality disks because the German player is just too sensitive. He didn't elaborate any more than that but I found it interesting.

If the hot power on your rig comes in through the fuse properly now, then that is correct and no, yours is correct and safe and the others aren't. They either are right or they aren't. There is no alternate way for the AC voltage than to have the hot leg go immediate to a fuse. Neutral should not be fused ever.

Enjoy your weekend with some great music!

Mark

I was there for the 10th Carverfest! Glad you were too! Or you should have been...

> Not sure what to say here. Perhaps white was used as the color for hot on the Sunfire chassis??

I know exactly what so say here: Sunfire fucked up. BIG TIME.

If you've got a white wire on the fuse, then your amp is wired unsafely and it's wiring is a violation of the safety standards. Putting all of the Sunfire-love aside for the moment, we have to just accept the truth -- this is a manufacturing/workmanship defect that should have been fixed under warranty. Period.

It's time to stop making excuses for Sunfire because we're all Carver fans. It's time for us to admit that if Sunfire amps were wired this way from the factory then the factory wiring scheme is both wrong and dangerous. If you've got an amp that's wired like this then you need to have it fixed. Now that your warranty expired and the company is gone, you get to pay to fix their mistakes.

If it's really true that all of the Sunfires are wired this way, well, that's a huge blow to Sunfire's reputation. Getting basic safety wiring wrong is bad enough. But misrepresenting these amps as having both UL and CE certification symbol is actionably wrong. If these amps were in current production they'd have to go through a recall.

If anyone wants to test to see if the amp could actually be wired safely, but still has a color-coding violation, it's simple enough to check with a VOM. Check for continuity between the neutral pin on the power cord and the white wire going to the fuse. If you have neutral going to the fuse then your amp contains an unsafe wiring violation. If you have the hot tab going to the fuse onthe white wire then your amp is technically safe, but you still have a color-coding violation, which is unsafe in it's own right.

Either way, any amp that has white to fuse is wired improperly, is unsafe, and needs to be fixed.

^^^ Just don't pull an OJ, Gary and go in there with pals and guns "just trying to get my stuff back". Don't want to see you in prison like "The Juice"! He belongs there; you don't. Maybe we can start a "free the Rabbit's audio stuff" fund here. Or is what you owe this b-auch a "bottomless pit"?

As to the Sunfire thing, if they are such a fire/safety hazard how come no reports of any fires or shocks from any of the 1000's of Sunfire amps currently in service?? Guess I'd need to hear Bob C.'s side of the story (if any) before I'd even dream of switching the polarity on mine...

We know that fused neutral is a problem. An amp that has a fused neutral needs to be fixed.

We have been told that Surdo's used amp, which had been modded in the aftermarket, came to him with a fused neutral problem. He did some research, calling Flannery (a recommended "Sunfire expert") and was told not to use the amp until he had the wiring fixed. He had a local tech fix the wiring problem and now the amp has a fused hot. It's all good.

Some people (not me) have made allegations that all of the Sunfires appear to be wired with a fused neutral. I have no first hand knowledge about this one way or the other. Were all of the Sunfires wired this way from the factory? I doubt it. The amp in Surdo's photo has a CE certification sticker affixed to it, and to the best of my recollection the Sunfire amps were UL listed. If the CE sticker is genuine, and if these amps were UL listed and CE certified, then they would not have been designed with a fused neutral. The fused neutral condition would have to be a modification that was made after the amp's design was certified. Surdo's amp has crossed international borders as a used product in the aftermarket, it has moved across countries that have different AC input wiring standards, and it looks like it's been modified. Surdo's amp is most likely to have been modified in the aftermarket after the amp had left the factory. Looking at his modified amp doesn't tell us anything certain about the AC wiring of all of the other Sunfire amps.

In my opinion: Bob Carver is a really smart guy, and I can imagine NO WAY that he would design an amp to have a fused neutral. Bob Carver would have designed the amp to have a fused hot. This makes me think that if there are Sunfire amps out there with a fused neutral, then these amps were probably modded after they left the factory.

But someone has commented that all Sunfires were wired this way from the factory. I'm not the one making that claim, and I don't believe it to be true. If someone has a 100% original Sunfire amp, and they insist that it has a fused neutral, and they insist that it came this way from the factory, then here are my thoughts:

In my opinion: Bob Carver is a really smart guy, and I can imagine NO WAY that he would design an amp to have a fused neutral. Bob Carver would have designed the amp to have a fused hot. This makes me think that if there are Sunfire amps out there with a fused neutral, then these amps were probably modded after they left the factory. In the unlikely event that they came out of the factory with a fused neutral, then it's possible that someone on the assembly line mis-wired the amp. If you insist that your Sunfire came that way from the factory, I think it's more likely that someone on the assembly line might have mis-wired the amp than that Bob Carver would have designed the amp with the intention that it would have a fused neutral. Bob Carver is a smart guy. He knows better.

Surdo's amp is listed as having CE certification. CE certification suggests that the amp would not have a fused neutral in the design. Surdo's amp is a used amp. It looks like it's been modified. We don't know who might have put the CE certification sticker on it, but if we assume that the CE sticker is valid, then a valid CE Certification sticker implies that Bob Carver's original design would not have had a fused neutral. If anyone in the chain of ownership of that amp had fraudulently attached a CE certification sticker on an amp that hadn't earned it, then the CE sticker doesn't really tell us anything useful, and all of our assumptions about the amp's wiring based upon CE the certification sticker have to be thrown out. Let me be clear on one point: I am not accusing Sunfire of attaching CE stickers to amps that didn't deserve them. I don't believe that to be the case.

In my opinion: I don't think that Sunfire would have made this kind of wiring mistake at the factory. But IF they did -- and that is a big IF, then the amps were mis-wired as a mistake, and someone on the assembly line screwed up. IF that happened then it would be a materials/workmanship problem and the factory would take care of it for you. Unfortunately the company is gone now so if you have that problem then you have to do the fix on your own.

I wouldn't waste Bob Carver's time on this. We already know the right answer to the question about what to do if the amp has a fused neutral -- just fix the AC power cord.

IMO it's also a waste of time to go digging into this, just to try to expose who is potentially responsible for a mistake that might have been made 20 years ago. Just do what Surdo did -- just fix your amp and enjoy the music.